Silas: Just in case there was any question, I’ll be looking up at the ceiling and thinking about you all night.

“Ooof,” she said, rubbing a hand over her heart. She needed to be a hell of a lot more careful where Silas Wright was concerned. The man could charm his way into places he had no right being. Including her pants.

Another message came in while she was still swooning. It was a GIF of Keanu Reeves in fake glasses blowing a kiss.

Silas: Shit. Sorry. Still figuring this GIF thing out. Meant to send this one.

A GIF of a teddy bear being crushed by hearts arrived next.

Maggie was debating whether or not to text the man back when she caught a glimpse of headlights as they shone through the glass at the front of the house. Instinctively, she turned down her music and then heard the crunch of gravel.

It was after ten. Too late for a neighbor dropping by. She turned off the light.

The engine cut out front, and she eased into the hallway. Regretting that she’d left her shoes upstairs, she ducked barefoot into the kitchen and grabbed the girthy flashlight she’d used to examine the innards of the bulkhead that the upper cabinets had been attached to.

There were footsteps on the porch. More than one person from the sounds of it. She debated for a hot second and then decided to go for the flank. She stole into the sunporch, unlocked the door, and tiptoed out onto the terrace.

If she snuck around to the front, it gave her the opportunity to scare the shit out of the trespassers. She was in the process of ninja-ing her way along the side of the house when she stubbed her toe on a hunk of slate.

It hurt. Badly. Hopping and flailing, she suffered in silence until the pain started to subside. This was why shoes existed. She lived in a construction zone, for Christ’s sake. She knew better.

Cursing under her breath, she jogged with high knees to the far end of the porch and then remembered the short part of the porch’s L didn’t have its own stairs. A design flaw in her opinion. As quietly as she could, Maggie climbed up and over the railing, her toe still throbbing.

“Of course it’s locked. Someone else owns the place now,” a voice whispered loudly from around the corner.

She edged up against the house and hoped to hell none of the floorboards would give her away.

“It’s not like they’re living here now,” another, more surly, voice whined. “This place is a shithole. You’d have to be a complete freak to move into it like this.”

Maggie took offense.